Trying to convert Quicken 2007 (Mac) to current Quicken (Mac) (edit)

PhiliMD

I have a very old (20 years) 2007 file that runs fine on quicken 2007. Finally have to update, since have to upgrade the operating system. Cannot use the converter in quicken classic. Won't work. Says resource fork is missing. Figured it was an issue with the file, so tried to create a copy from quicken 2007. I get an error saying unable to erase partially copied file.

Spoke to support. They have no work around for either error. Any one have a solution? I can't lose 20+ years of data and start all over!

Thanks

jacobs

@PhiliMD I'm glad you got the file to convert!

I can't speak for Quicken Support, but my guess is that most of the representatives have very little experience with/knowledge of Quicken 2007. Support for it was discontinued a long time ago, and current reps probably know how to tell you the basics to convert a file, but not how to troubleshoot issues with a Quicken 2007 data file. So some of us here who were longtime Quicken 2007 users and dealt with conversions over the past decade may know more tips and tricks.

As for your checking account, I'm not sure why it would be off. Have you connected it to your bank? If so, I'd look back to the beginning of the account to see if Quicken inserted an opening balance transaction which is throwing you off. Since you are int he good position of being able to run Quicken 2007 on the old Mac simultaneously with Quicken Classic on the new Mac, hopefully you'll be able to compare them and zero in on the problem(s) pretty quickly. Start back at the beginning of the account; is the opening balance the same. Jump to the end of the first year; is the balance the same? Then jump forward a few years and check to see if the balance is the same in both. Work your way forward or backward until you find where the balances change. If I was going to take a guess, I'd suspect a missing transfer(s) that didn't convert correctly, but you'll have to see where the data leads you.

smayer97

Yes, the missing .qdfm file extension in the file name is most often the culprit to this misrepresentative error message. Glad you sorted it out.

jacobs

Let's go back to the Mac which runs Quicken 2007 — do you still have it? Do you have an old Mac and a new Mac, such that you can still open Quicken 2007 on the old Mac, and the file still works? If so, you should be able to convert.

When you got the error about the missing resource fork, that suggests there may have been a problem with the way you moved the old data file to the new Mac. How did you do the transfer? If via a Flash drive, it was probably not formatted correctly (HFS+) to handle very old pre-OS X Mac files. But if you still have the old file in working form, there are easy ways around this problem. The simplest is to make the Quicken 2007 data file into a .zip file — select the data file in the Finder, and do File > Compress. The .zip format protects the contents of the file(s) contained within. Move the .zip file to the new Mac with modern Quicken Classic, double-click it to de-compress it, make sure the file has a .qmdf file extension, and it should be ready to convert. Launch Quicken Classic, got to File > New, select "Start from a Quicken 2007 data file", and select the data file.

But I'm making guesses and assumptions about your set-up which may not be correct. So maybe disregard the steps above right now, and please post back and describe if you have two computers, on running Quicken 2007 and one running Quicken Classic. (I was assuming you have two computers like this because you can't run Quicken 2007 on an operating system past macOS Mojave, and Quicken Classic requires macOS Big Sur or later, so it's no longer possible to run both on the same Mac.)

PhiliMD

I have two setups. One exactly as you said. Despite zipping file on old mac and bringing it over to new mac and then unzipping, same error.

On old mac, I have both quicken 07 and Classic (using Mojave). Same error with the file if I do this.

I tried to export the whole 07 file to qif (on the old mac) and make new quicken file on old mac (07 version) by importing qif. . That file (07) is very inaccurate, but will covert to classic (but the new 07 file is missing a ton of data so not useful)

jacobs

On the old Mac, in Quicken 2007, have you/are you able to run the utility to rebuild the account indexes (Command-Option-B)? This sometimes cures a host of unexplainable problems.

I'm not sure how the resource fork could be missing if you zipped the working Quicken 2007 data file before moving it to the new Mac. And just to ask again, does the data file have the .qdfm file extension before and after compressing and moving it? (I know it seems silly, but the absence of the file extension can cause the converter to think the resource fork is missing.)

Or it's possible there is some corruption in your Quicken 2007 data file which the converter utility simply can't handle.

On your old Mac that is running Mojave, is the hard drive formatted as APFS rather than HFS+ (MacOS Extended)? I can't remember, but I think upgrading to Mojave reformatted the hard drive in most instances. Quicken 2007 has some issues with APFS drives and a few of its disk utilities — such as generating automatic backups — since APFS didn't exist when Quicken 2007 was being updated. This might be a long shot, but getting both the Quicken 2007 data file and the Quicken 2007 application onto an HFS+ drive might offer a resolution to the problem with the Quicken 2007 data file. If you have an old hard disk lying around which you can reformat as HFS+, that would work. Otherwise, even a flash drive formatted as HFS+ should work. Zip the application and zip the data file, and move them to the HFS+ drive. After unzipping both, drag the data file onto the Quicken 2007 application file to launch Quicken. Reindex the file with Command-Option-B. Then use File > Save a Copy to create a new copy of your data file. (Quicken 2007 Save a Copy writes a new data file transaction by transaction, and in doing so, should avoid whatever corruption may exist in your old data file.) Open the new file it created to make sure it looks okay in Quicken 2007. Then quit, zip the new data file, move it to the new Mac, and try the conversion again. (If the converter still fails, which I wouldn't expect, you can try again to Export All from the new Quicken 2007 data file, and use the resulting .QIF file to create a new Quicken 2007 data file; perhaps this one will be cleaner than the one you got with the old data file. Then you can move this newest Quicken 2007 data file to the new Mac and try converting again.)

PhiliMD

I renamed the file and made sure the qdfm was there. It now will convert the file! Why didn't quicken support know that!

I note that the balances for many of the accounts are off by a bit, but one, my checking account is off by a huge amount. Any idea why one account would be so off?

jacobs

@PhiliMD I'm glad you got the file to convert!

I can't speak for Quicken Support, but my guess is that most of the representatives have very little experience with/knowledge of Quicken 2007. Support for it was discontinued a long time ago, and current reps probably know how to tell you the basics to convert a file, but not how to troubleshoot issues with a Quicken 2007 data file. So some of us here who were longtime Quicken 2007 users and dealt with conversions over the past decade may know more tips and tricks.

As for your checking account, I'm not sure why it would be off. Have you connected it to your bank? If so, I'd look back to the beginning of the account to see if Quicken inserted an opening balance transaction which is throwing you off. Since you are int he good position of being able to run Quicken 2007 on the old Mac simultaneously with Quicken Classic on the new Mac, hopefully you'll be able to compare them and zero in on the problem(s) pretty quickly. Start back at the beginning of the account; is the opening balance the same. Jump to the end of the first year; is the balance the same? Then jump forward a few years and check to see if the balance is the same in both. Work your way forward or backward until you find where the balances change. If I was going to take a guess, I'd suspect a missing transfer(s) that didn't convert correctly, but you'll have to see where the data leads you.

smayer97

Yes, the missing .qdfm file extension in the file name is most often the culprit to this misrepresentative error message. Glad you sorted it out.